(114b) Enhancement of Chemical Engineering Introductory Curriculum through Service Learning Implementation

As a part of a departmental curriculum reform project supported by the National Science Foundation, service learning has been implemented in the first ChE sophomore-level course by a collaborative student and faculty effort to increase retention through student engagement in interesting and insightful projects that apply engineering principles to community based, societal issues. The application of service learning in the classroom will enhance the engineering curriculum by reinforcing engineers' ultimate responsibility to society, building relationships among student teams, industry, and non-profit networks, and creating excitement for engineering through the promotion of sustainable technologies, project management, hands on experience, open-ended problems and project based learning. The general process and life cycle of the project includes project formulation, promotion, completion, and reflection. In the semesters from fall 2006 to 2007, the introductory classes were presented with designing a ?green? home for the community partner, Habitat for Humanity. In the fall of 2008, the introductory class was presented with researching and analyzing the life cycle assessment of compact fluorescent light bulbs and proposing new recycling methods for the community partner, the City of College Station, Texas. The projects culminated in professional presentations and reports for review by faculty and community partner representatives.